Grow a diverse economy: Tracking metrics will help Topeka leaders determine the right path

Morgan Chilson

Saturday

Aug 5, 2017 at 2:02 PM

Strategic work on economic development in Shawnee County pinpointed multiple issues, from a decreasing population to needed improvements in the community’s workforce, or “talent pipeline.”

City and county leaders track those and other factors as they set policies and goals for the community, said Matt Pivarnik, president and CEO of the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce and GO Topeka. Officials use more than 45 metrics to take Topeka’s pulse in wide-ranging arenas, from workforce to job creation to items that focus on quality of life.

“I actually think metrics are the key to success,” he said. “Anybody can use activity to make it look like they’re busy or that they’re successful. I think metrics are something to aspire to. They will also be benchmarked against other communities and benchmarked against the economy.”

The City of Topeka is working to create appropriate benchmarks for many of the numbers it tracks to keep an eye on how the city is faring, said Nickie Lee, Topeka’s director of finance and administrative services.

“We don’t have a formal benchmarking program right now,” she said. “I’ve got a network of finance directors that around budget time, we’ll say: ‘Hey, we’re forecasting a growth of 2 percent. Where are you guys at?’”

Creating change through focusing on economic factors such as population growth can be a tough goal. Even in the Market Street report, the writers said population change is not a “reliable indicator of a community’s success or future prospects.” But fitting into the population growth category are like migration patterns, age dynamics and educational attainment. Each of those can be tracked and targeted with specific programs to effect change, Pivarnik said.

Under each pillar highlighted in the Market Street report are multiple metrics that “move the needle” on issues, he said, and it’s often those metrics that officials target as a way to make change. No matter what, they’re a way of taking responsibility and assessing progress.

“We’re looking to apply smart, specific, measurable, agreed-upon, realistic and timebound metrics, and I think it gives you as a reporter, our elected leaders, even our citizens, it gives them the ability to hold us and the community accountable for the plans that we’re implementing,” he said.

Matt Pivarnik, president and CEO of the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce and GO Topeka.

Topeka interim City Manager Doug Gerber said metrics the city uses and tracks tie in to Momentum 2022.

“I think you have to be intentional about everything you do,” he said. “Yes, you’re intentional about attracting people, but you do that through other measures. There’s a big focus right now on quality of life, and what does that even mean. We can do things that impact quality of life, and that’s one intentional way we can get toward population growth.”

Metrics are tools that provide measures, goals and accountability; they have to be used as such, Pivarnik said.

“Let’s say we set a metric to create X number of jobs paying X dollars a year or higher. And then in 2019, we go into some deep, deep recession,” Pivarnik said. “It’ll be important to look at that recession and look at that metric, and say: ‘This was set in 2017 when we didn’t anticipate a recession in 2019. So obviously, we need to do a mid-course correction and look at that.’ It gives you something to shoot for.”

Quality of life and quality of place are consistent terms in Momentum conversations. Many of the economic measures and issues highlighted in the Market Street report can affect those elements, Pivarnik said.

Approaching concepts such as quality of life through the economic metrics that are part of city strategies, though, creates an interesting debate.

“From a resource allocation standpoint, I think that is still a huge debate about how to put that concept into money,” Lee said. “Generally, it’s easy to say quality of place is great, we need to improve it. But when it comes down to it, are we as a city willing to spend more money on what you call ‘quality of life’ issues than public safety, streets, kind of the basics of what cities have always provided? I think cities everywhere are having that philosophical debate — is quality of life a basic city service?”

The city of Topeka did add quality of life to the list of budget priorities, she said.

“They’ve made that first step to say when we talk about what the city wants to do, we’re going to include it on the list, which goes a long way,” Lee said. “But have you put that to dollars?”

“The challenge is translating what (the numbers) show us and what the gap is into some sort of concrete action,” said Gerber, adding that city staff are “very in tune” with numbers they track.

“We’ve been having a lot of conversations about our streets,” he said. “That’s one major way we can impact quality of life. There’s a lot of things from the city perspective that we can do to make sure that our buildings are safe, we have good public safety services, other code enforcement efforts are up to date. From a city perspective, it’s a really holistic approach as well.”

Below are a few of the metrics area leaders use to effect change in the capital city:

Revenue indicators: Property tax, sales tax, franchise fees, water fees and waste water fees are all categories of revenue that Lee follows closely. While it’s important to make sure they all stay with positive growth, it can be challenging to actually change them.

Take, for instance, the franchise fee, which Lee said hasn’t been growing at the rate projected, even though the category is up 1.98 percent as of the city’s May 2017 report. The franchise fee is essentially a pass-through tax — meaning it’s a tax collected by one entity and passed directly to another — collected by utilities at the rate of either 5 or 6 percent, Lee said. It’s volatile based on weather and utility rates.

But policies can effect revenue. The property tax can be affected by things like the Land Use Growth Management Plan, the city’s plan for growth, Gerber said.

“That’s an intentional strategy that was adopted at a policy level by the governing body that says this is how we want to grow,” he said. “You can really stretch that and say it ties into being good stewards of what we already have rather than extending services to places they don’t necessarily need to be — the ultimate environmental policy.”

Building permits: Lee said the city tracks building permits and other licensing, and they can have an impact on several categories.

“We can have a good process,” she said. “We can help that business get up and going so they can generate sales tax.”

Business visits: Jackie Steele Carlson, vice president of business retention and expansion at GO Topeka, said she tracks and sets goals for how many businesses her department visits. Those aren’t just businesses she’s trying to draw to the area, but those already in existence. The visits help her gather insights into what companies need, and she’s able to bring that information and data back to elected officials and other leaders.

“We look at what capital investments that the businesses are making, how many jobs are we creating, what’s the average wage of that job,” she said. “The part that’s probably hard to control is the target. We would like to have three expansion projects this year, which is kind of an unknown we can’t really control.”

Pivarnik said capital investment is an important number to know.

“When you find a company that is making capital investments, it is actually probably the strongest indication of their commitment to a community,” he said, adding that on-site company visits are critical to communication and helping companies work on potential issues they might have with expansions.

Average wages: Molly Howey, vice president of business development and attraction at GO Topeka, said she’d like to “move the needle” on the county’s average wage.

“As we work with prospects and talk with them about their incentives, we do encourage them to pay competitive rates,” she said. “They have the data that shows what the averages are for their industries.”

Steele Carlson said Kansas state government can play a key role in incentivizing people to increase their wages because their incentives are largely tied to income taxes.

“The company can get a bigger incentive because they’re paying better,” Steele Carlson said.

Education and workforce: The development of a top workforce to address business needs is critical, said Barbara Stapleton, vice president of workforce and education at GO Topeka. Although she tracks employment figures and unemployment, most of the focus is on education.

“We’re looking to train lifelong learners,” she said, adding that her focus is “cradle to career,” from kindergarten to technical education to college. Such an extensive focus means everything from reaching out to high school students to introduce them to job opportunities to working with employers on workforce needs.

Forge, a new young professionals organization, is a workforce initiative, as is Included, a new diversity and inclusion initiative, said Pivarnik. Workforce is impacted by the same quality of life issues discussed previously.

“We’re trying to move a metric, and grow a population and grow our available workforce,” he said.

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